Carly Janine Mazur Mixes Figurative Painting with Abstract Design

Connecticut based artist Carly Janine Mazur employs a limited palette and repetitive design in her portraits. Her latest series, “Metamorphosis”, on view at Arch Enemy Arts gallery in Philadelphia, shows her growing interest in this mixture of the figurative and abstract. Working in oils and acrylics with metallic accents, her paintings portray classical-bodied female nudes intermingling with their environment. Biblical imagery, such as William Blake’s 1808 illustation “The Temptation and Fall of Eve” for example, where the serpent spirals around Eve’s body, came to mind when she was creating the series. Although she is not particularly religious, Mazur found inspiration in the graphical and devotional aspects of such works. Similarly, her ‘Eves’ are at a visual odds with their surroundings, as they seem to morph with dark and cragged tree roots and branches. There is a certain passion in their facial expressions and body language which Mazur uses to create an emotional connection with her viewers.